Following on from the HP Mini 311 benchmarks that appeared yesterday, Laptop Mag has released its review of the ION-powered netbook. Overall, it scored highly, earning a coveted ‘Editors Choice’ award. Whilst we’d already seen that performance was way ahead than your traditional netbook, we didn’t know how much of a hit this took on battery life.

Luckily, battery life wasn’t compromised. In their tests, they managed to get a very respectable 5 hours and 46 minutes out of the 6-cell battery. Combine this with a reasonable $399 price point, and sleek chassis, it seems that HP are onto a winner with the Mini 311. Check out the key review points after the break.

Key review points of the HP Mini 311

The Mini 311 design is attractive, with a flush 6-cell battery. It’s also not much heavier than other 12-inch netbooks.

The keyboard was comfortable to type on, despite smooth keys.

The touchpad is a bit disappointing as it has too much friction, the mouse buttons are also slightly stiff.

The 1366×768 11.6-inch glossy display is a pleasure to use. Horizontal viewing angles are good.

The Altec Lansing stereo speakers provide better sound than normally found in netbooks.

The Mini 311 scored 1,917 on the PCMark05 test, 500 points better than the netbook average.

The Mini 311 scored 1,386 in 3DMark06, more than 1,280 points better than the netbook average.

Video on Hulu was choppy but the introduction of GPU-accelerated flash (Flash Player 10.1) should lead to smooth video playback.

Boot time of 1 minute 44 seconds was very slow; the netbook average is 55 seconds.

Heat wasn’t an issue. The Mini 311 stayed relatively cool.

1080p video output fared well, with only few instances of motion blur.

Video editing also saw a significant improvement over traditional netbooks.

Playing the latest games (such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Far Cry 2) is possible but at very low resolutions.

Comments

I am looking for a netbook that works well for webcasting HD quality video (live and recorded). Does the lack of a separate video chip make the HP Mini 311 a poor choice? Should I wait for the Asus 1201N? Or is there an existing netbook that works well for viewing HD quality video? Please advise. I would like to buy a netbook now, rather than later (unless the 1201N is coming out within a week). Thanks.

Bob said:November 18th, 2009 4:25 AM

@ Andrew :

You got great news – The HP Mini 311 is the only netbook – cuz of ION – that can NOW run Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1 .. run your HD / youtube videos flawlessly … am told one gets max purchase out of Adobe’s Flash 10.1 from Firefox browser. This is officially now the best ‘complete’ netbook in town. Just download it – see the news here in nbc !